Thirteenth Grade

Lately, I have been hearing a lot about students and community residents who regard two-year colleges as the "thirteenth grade." They're right!

I'm not saying we don't teach at a college level; we do. I have discovered two immutable rules of hierarchies, however: the poorer the people at a potluck, the better the food; and the less the prestige of a college, the more hidebound by rules the institution. We inflict this reputation on ourselves by clinging to policies that are outdated or useless in the 21th century. For example, some colleges don't let professors wear jeans. Can you imagine such a rule at Harvard or Notre Dame? In an era when more and more classes are taught online, some administrators cling to a "daily presence" rule. Even if all the work a professor will do that day will be over the Internet, at a library, or alone in a quiet space, often administrators insist on wasting time and gasoline by commuting to see ... no one. I have told people in the business world of this situation, and they look at me with exasperation. Their employers want them to telecommute because telecommuting encourages efficiency. Professional judgment dictates when to be on site and when to work from home.

If we want the respect of our students and the community, we have to act like we deserve it. We need to worry more about qualitative measures (graduation and successful transfer rates, performance on Regents' exams, number and quality of publications, etc.), not just quantitative ones (hours spent sitting in an office on campus or number of violations of the no jeans rule).